Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Allain stood and, surprising the dickens out of me, dropped his effete manner and clipped in full male, “Female, handle yourself.”
Germaine opened her mouth.
But I spoke first.
“She’s right. We should have given her a heads-up.”
Both of them turned to me.
I looked to Germaine. “I’d like to say I’m new to this, but that isn’t a good excuse. Aleksei and I discussed the fallout, and we should have brought you into our decision. This won’t help, but I decided this morning, Aleksei agreed to come with me, and this happened forty-five minutes before the ritual began. We still should have told you, and you have my apologies we didn’t. I’ll do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Germaine stared at me, stunned.
Allain sat down on a huff.
She whipped out a tablet. “I’ve written a statement. You need to approve it.”
“The prince should—” Allain began.
She reared on him. “The prince is unavailable to me at this time. I’ve commed him repeatedly.” She jerked a thumb at me. “She’s ready to roll in her royal duties by making public appearances? Okay. But she stepped in it, so she has to help me wash off some of the mud,” Germaine declared.
She was right about that too.
I took the tablet and read the statement.
Today, His Royal Highness, the True Heir, Prince Aleksei, and his mate, Mistress Laura Makepeace, attended the passing ritual of the victim in the recent assassination plot against the prince, Naylyn Biggerstaff.
They did this with heavy hearts that a beloved daughter, granddaughter, sister and friend lost her life to trust betrayed.
The prince and his mate ask the people of Night’s Fall to bend their heads to the grief of Ms. Biggerstaff’s family, mournful that such a young soul, full of hope and with a bright future, paid such a steep price for giving her heart to a male unworthy of it.
I thought of the family I’d met several hours earlier. The haggard face of a father. The lost expression of the mother. The swollen eyes of one grandmother, anger and shock in the fixed stare of the other. The defeated slump of the shoulders of a grandfather, and the etched grief of the other. And last, the abject, uncontrolled weeping of a younger sister.
It had felt unbearable, but standing at Aleksei’s side, I bore up.
They’d been stunned at our arrival, and I didn’t know if they knew it, but their curtsies to Aleksei were fit for the king.
He’d been marvelous, taking the mother’s hand, lifting her up from her genuflection, and holding her hand between both of his while he murmured words of condolence.
I’d hugged her, and the sister, and touched cheeks with the father, thinking it sad and sweet he blushed.
They invited us to sit with them as the congregation slid into the curved pews circled around the ritual altar in order to watch the red flames consume Naylyn’s swathed mortal remains in their glass enclosure.
And what did you say, even if you didn’t want a front row seat to that?
We sat with them.
Aleksei had a meeting, and I had the interviews, so we didn’t linger.
But with the family’s response to us, the tearful but warm gazes of Naylan’s other family and many friends that followed our every move, no matter what the chatter on the social tapes or news displays said, I knew we’d done the right thing.
“This statement is excellent,” I said to Germaine.
“Allow me,” Allain sniffed.
I handed the tablet to him.
“I have your approval to release it?” Germaine asked.
“If Allain is good with it, yes,” I answered.
“Fine. Now we’ll talk about Nata Livingston sitting out in the antechamber, awaiting to interview as your aide,” she kept me.
Oh heck.
And yes, Allain went to the Catalogues to ask if she was interested in the position.
Obviously, she said she was.
But unsurprising news, it seemed Germaine had her finger on the pulse of everything at the Palace.
“I—”
“It cannot happen,” Germaine decreed.
Allain’s head came up.
My neck tensed.
“I believe we all know this is a sensitive issue for Prince Errol,” she stated.
“She isn’t interviewing to be Prince Errol’s aide,” I replied.
“He lives in this house,” Germaine retorted.
“There are eight hundred and fifteen rooms in this house,” Allain pointed out.
“He has his own aide,” Germaine said to Allain. “And he meets with him in this wing. Where she will have an office.”
“Then it’s good they’re both adults,” I stated. “And should she be selected for the job, they can behave like adults. But as she’ll be dealing with me, and Allain, the prince really needs to have nothing to do with her, except be courteous to her if he should pass her in the hall.”
Germaine laid it all out.
“The king forbids it.”
I gasped.
Allain did too.
She took her tablet from Allain.
“I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to tell her the position has been filled,” Germaine concluded.